50 Things At 50 – Part 1

Today, the 23rd of April 2022, I’m celebrating going around the sun for the fiftieth time. What you’ll find below, are some of my observations, musings, and lessons learned, during those years on planet Earth.  (I’d also like to give the great Jamie Alderton full credit for this post idea.)

1- Attitude Is Everything – A lot of us allow our attitude to be dictated to us by others. People cut us off, we allow that to take control of our mood. But if you control how your attitude you’ll find that everything looks different.  When we’re not angry, we don’t pay attention to things that make us angry. If we feel positive we do better work. 

2- Work Or Play – Like attitude, how you look at what you’re doing makes a difference. See everything you do as work, and writing a blog post seems like a chore. But see it as play, and you’re more relaxed and it’s fun to do.

3 – Happiness Is Success, Success Isn’t Happiness – While it’s hard to pin down happiness, doing things that make you feel good about yourself is the way to go.  Once you’ve got that in your back pocket you’re already a success, everything on top of that is a bonus. 

4 – Find Something To Laugh About – As adults, we don’t laugh enough. If you want to feel better about yourself and the world, find something to laugh about. Like controlling your attitude, finding something to laugh at is a good way to start the day.

5 – Nobody Cares As Much As You Think – If you want to know how little people care about what you do, create a TikTok, video, or blog post and see how little amount of people pay attention to it. That there should pop that inflated ego of yours. 

6 – Age Isn’t An Excuse – Unless you’re trying to run a hundred metres sub 10 seconds, everything else is achievable at any age. Just because you didn’t write, podcast, or do videos yet, doesn’t mean that they’re off the table now because of your age. You can be an inspiration or hero to someone at any age. – Stop using that excuse. 

7 – You Don’t Need Courage Is Be A Critic – You also don’t need to be an expert either.  And yet, we hold critics up on a pedestal and feel that they’re right. The majority of critics you’ll come up against haven’t done the thing you’ve done (usually because of fear or laziness) and yet we think that they’re right or need to be paid attention to. 

8 – There Is No Perfect Time – If you wait for the perfect time to start anything, you’ll never start it. And sometimes ignorance, not knowing what you’re getting into, can be bliss. The best thing is to throw yourself into it today and learn as you go. And you’ll learn more in the doing than you will from any book or video.

9 – Perfection Is A Moving Target – If you do things over and over again, you’ll never get anywhere. And that’s because perfection is not only a moving target but something that’s in the eye of the beholder.  What you think is perfect now, will seem less so in six months’ time when you’ve got more experience under your belt. – Also your high standard of perfection, could be sloppy work in someone else’s eyes.  So what’s the point.

10 – Being Crap Is A Starting Point Not A Destination – None of us likes to be terrible at something, and that’s probably why most of us give up after only one or two tries. But if you understand that being crap is only a point on the way to being great at something, you can be a lot more forgiving of yourself. – Plus, did you really think that you’d be an expert on the first try? 

Stay tuned for part 2.

The post 50 Things At 50 – Part 1 first appeared on WriteCome.com.